Local jump-rope team gets America's Got Talent audition

Monday

Dec 30, 2013 at 12:01 AMDec 30, 2013 at 2:00 PM

By MICHAEL MACAGNONESTAFF WRITER

For 90 seconds Sunday, a group of 12 local children will have a chance to jump onto "America’s Got Talent."

The jump-rope team — the Bungee Jumpers — will audition before the show’s producers Sunday in Atlantic City. Justin Pillmore, the team’s coach, said one of the producers called him out of the blue after seeing a YouTube video of their performances.

Pillmore’s team performs halftime shows at university basketball games and other area schools. He said during the past three weeks, 12 members of the team have been practicing a new, 90-second routine for the audition.

“For those kids to get that exposure they are just ecstatic,” he said. “I don’t think in their brain it will hit until, hopefully, they are on this TV show.”

A video of the team practicing its routine on its Facebook page shows the members jumping in unison, skipping, jumping double- and triple-dutch and performing “bum skips,” for which one member of the team holds a world record. Groveland Elementary School student Kyle Hendricks set the record for that -- 82 jumps in 30 seconds -- in June.

When the Heinzmann twins, Julianne and Keira, first heard they might have the chance to perform on national television, they were ecstatic. Then the stress of cutting a seven-minute halftime show to 90 seconds hit. The pair, now juniors at Central Bucks East, started jumping with Pillmore’s team in sixth grade before transitioning into coaches.

“We were so shocked and then the stress level hit and it was down to business and prepare for this,” Keira Heinmann said. “We have a seven-minute routine and all of that is jam packed with our best tricks. We had to decide what tricks we want them to see and what would we have to save for later rounds.”

Pillmore said the team grew out of interest in jump-roping from his gym classes at Groveland in Plumstead. He also heads up the Just Jumpin’ jump-rope camp, which promotes jump-roping as an activity for children 5-12 years old to combat obesity.

Many of the team members have practiced and performed together for the last five years, since the founding of the team. The Heinzmann sisters said they enjoyed watching their teammates grow along with them, while the two of them grew into coaches.

“We’ve really come close to all of this team. The sheer amount of personalities that have developed and how tall they have gotten is so incredible,” Julianne Heinzmann said.

Lori Rebstock, mother to team member Julie Rebstock, said her family has watched Julie and the team mature over the past five years.

“Each year we have seen her individual growth and her team growth,” she said. “Each year the routine gets better and more complicated and the venue gets bigger.”

Julie Rebstock started, along with many other members of the team, in second grade. She’s now in seventh and her mother said she has loved to see her daughter performing in front of hundreds and sometimes thousands of spectators.

“We were at Penn State last year, seeing them perform in front of such a large audience,” she said. “She had her head held high, smile on her face jumping in beat with the music and we thought, she’s good.”

The Rebstocks also agreed with John Clay, the father of seventh-grade team member Gretchen Clay, on one main point — the team practices constantly.

Lori Rebstock said Julie continually practices in the house and added that on a recent day off from school because of snow, about a dozen team members were at her house practicing their routines.

“It’s been really exciting,” he said. “The teams give her an opportunity to make a lot of new friends from all over the place.”

Gretchen Clay said the team has grown very close through its hours of practice and performing together for the last five years.

“They’re like my second family, she said. “Everybody is around me, it is so much fun and it’s just a great exercise.”

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